Laundry Laundry Everywhere

Laundry was a big problem for me in what we are now calling “the burned down house” (to distinguish it from “our first house” and “the old house”). In the not-quite-two-years we lived there I never worked out a good system for sorting, washing, and putting away like I’d had before, probably because there was no laundry room. When Emily was home, she always took over putting the laundry away. When she was at school, I usually let it pile up on the sofa in the living room until I had several hours to tackle it all at once. There was a big pile there on Labor Day.
Things are much better here, I am thrilled to say. For the first time ever, I have a laundry area upstairs near my bedroom, which is also where the little kids’ rooms are. That makes it very easy to put two-thirds of the laundry away as it comes out of the wash. When I fill a basket with clean things for the big boys, I take it down for them to put away–or not.
John went to our storage facility this week and brought back some boxes, including some clothes salvaged from our basement. I also retrieved a laundry basket full of smoky clothes that I had left in one of the places where we stayed before we found this house. Several washes later, with the help of Oxyclean, Shout, and Febreze, the fire smell is gone.
On the day we salvaged, John and I took stacks and stacks of clothes that had been in the armoire in Teddy’s room to the nearby dry cleaner. Today he picked it up–$257 worth (it costs twice as much for the smell removal, apparently). We were so shell-shocked that day that we paid no attention to what we were saving, so thrilled were we that anything was left at all. So we have spent an amusing evening looking through clothes that Teddy never bothered to remove from his room even though they were too small for him to wear. Jake can wear a few things, but Goodwill is going to be getting some nicely pressed clothes this week.
It was the same with many of the things I washed, again mostly from Teddy’s room (lifted from his floor, where he kept them, and therefore tainted with wet gray nastiness). However, there were some happy surprises from Lorelei’s room–her bathrobe (just the other day she was missing it); a dress that was a favorite of mine when I was a little girl; another that was Emily’s. I really don’t remember much about that day, and I thought all the clothes that were mine were gone. So that made me happy. 🙂

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I feel pretty good when I read this list.~ A Grandparent’s Wisdom on Parenting ~

1. Let your child be a child. Children are not little adults.

2. Don’t have too many rules, especially when they’re little. They’re not going to remember them all anyway.

3. Pick your battles. It won’t work to make an issue out of everything your child does that you don’t like.

4. The greatest gift you can give your child besides your love is your time. Whenever possible, interrupt what you are doing to take time for them. Many things you need to do can be put off until later but many things your child does only happen once, and you don’t want to miss them.

5. Don’t micromanage your child’s behavior. It isn’t necessary (or productive in the long run) to try to control everything he or she says or does.

7. Kids get tired. When they do, it’s usually futile to try to reason with them to get them to do what you want.

8. Don’t say things to your own child that you would never dream of saying to someone else’s child.

9. Whatever stage your child is in, remember: this, too, shall pass, and they will move on to another stage. (This may be better or worse than the previous one!)

10. Don’t let mealtime become a battle zone. No child has ever starved to death yet because they didn’t eat everything on their plate.

11. Read to your child.

12. When your child starts talking, listen. What they say is important to them, and kids have great things to say.

13. Spend some time tucking your child into bed each night.

14. It’s good to find a church family to help you raise your child. You need others to support you. Your child needs to establish a good foundation of values and truth. If he or she doesn’t get this early in life, they might get it later and from someone else you may not like.

15. Take time every day to enjoy your child and relish this role God has blessed you with.

(Postscript: my dad says some of these are things he did, and some are things he wishes he’d done. ❤️) …

Timeline Photos"Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you." – Luke 14 #SundayGospel bit.ly/2ZpzEtS…

"Arsonists have set God’s Cathedral aflame. In the Amazon rainforest, home to hundreds of thousands of animal species, 40,000 plant species, and nearly a million indigenous people, fires are raging, destroying the ecological buttresses of one of the most biodiverse and important ecosystems in the world. These creatures are a testament to God’s good creation, a living, breathing cathedral, shaped by the evolutionary forces of God, and entrusted to human hands." …

"Baby loss is not just a story of grief, of pain and of tears, its a beautiful story of love and of celebration.

So let’s scream from the rooftops that all children matter, those that are here and those that we desperately miss."I haven’t shared this picture for quite some time so wanted to post it again this evening. These are my children…the ones that ran ahead and the ones who I get the honour to raise.

Someone said to me in an interview recently well you are the mother of two, I kindly corrected them. I am the mother of 7, just because five of my children didn’t get to grow up on the earth, doesn’t stop them from existing.

I also wanted to say this…Baby loss is not just a story of grief, of pain and of tears, its a beautiful story of love and of celebration.

So let’s scream from the rooftops that all children matter, those that are here and those that we desperately miss. ❤️

I am so unbelievably touched that SO many people have liked and shared this image, THANK You. Please feel free to also like my page and see future posts and quotes, I would love for you to become a FB friend x